


Each Thing That in Its Season Grows

by schweet_heart



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, F/F, F/M, Humour, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Magic Revealed, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Merlin, Pining Arthur, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-09-30 21:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17231444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: In which an ill-timed kiss sets off a chain reaction in Camelot, leading to a number of unexpected (but ultimately fortunate) revelations.Alternatively: Merlin is right, the love lives of the people of Camelot really are way too complicated.





	Each Thing That in Its Season Grows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skitz_phenom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skitz_phenom/gifts).



> Dear Skitz_Phenom, 
> 
> This was my first time writing Gwen/Leon/Percival as an OT3, so I hope you feel that I did your wonderful prompt justice! It was a pleasure to write this fluffy little fic for you. Happy holidays!
> 
> With many thanks to the mods for hosting the fest, and to my beta, for all her hard work. You guys rock <3

 

Gwen kisses Leon right after the Yuletide feast. Merlin stumbles across them in an alcove, Gwen’s arms twined around Leon’s neck, her body pressed against his where he’s trapped against the wall. To his credit, Leon is obviously attempting to hold her off, his hands at her waist, his shoulders canted backwards as though to escape. But it doesn’t look as though he’s trying very hard.

“Merlin!” he gasps, wrenching himself away from her as Merlin stops dead in front of them. “I don’t—she _kissed_ me.”

He looks bewildered as he says it, and Gwen appears more than a little dazed, her eyes dark and sparkling in the candlelight.

“Gwen?” Merlin asks, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes,” Gwen says. “I’m fine. Better than fine!”

She doesn’t sound fine. She sounds a bit drunk, actually, which is unlike her, and when Merlin tugs at her arm she stumbles away from Leon with a giggle, dark curls escaping from their ties and tumbling around her face. She looks, he thinks, uncommonly happy, as though kissing Leon were the highlight of her entire existence. That in itself makes Merlin frown.

“I think I’d better take you home,” he tells her, glancing over at the knight. Leon’s gaze is fixed on Gwen’s face, a mixture of confusion, longing, and guilt suffusing his features. “Come on, Gwen. It’s time to go.”

She follows him docilely enough, letting him tow her by the wrist towards the open doorway, but when he tries to pull her from the room she balks, looking back over her shoulder.

“I can’t just leave,” she says, fighting her way free of Merlin’s grip. “What about Sir Leon?”

“What about him?” Merlin asks, beginning to feel slightly desperate. Arthur is still sitting at the high table, watching them, and he’s not sure how much the prince has seen. “He’s got his own home to go to.”

“I know. But he must be so lonely, don’t you think?” When Merlin doesn’t answer, Gwen gives a little sigh. “Don’t tell Arthur, but I think…” She has a hand to her mouth, her eyes dreamy and unfocused. “I think I might be in love with him.”

It’s fairly obvious that she doesn’t mean the prince.

 

+

 

“I’m not sure what was going on,” Merlin tells Gaius, frowning into his breakfast the following morning. “It’s not like Gwen to get so drunk she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but it’s not like her to just throw herself at someone, either. And I thought she was in love with Arthur!”

“It could be an enchantment,” Gaius agrees, taking a bite of his porridge. “Perhaps she fell foul of a love potion while she was at the feast. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has intercepted a spell that was intended for the prince.”

They both shudder slightly, remembering. The last time that had happened, Geoffrey had spent several weeks trying to woo the king, in increasingly creative ways. Merlin hasn’t been able to set foot in the library since.

“I’d better go check on her,” he says decisively. “Maybe she can tell me what happened, or at least help me get to the bottom of this.”

“Take this,” Gaius advises, reaching for a vial of colourless liquid. “It should help to mitigate the effects until I can brew up a proper antidote. And Merlin,” he adds, as Merlin gets up to leave. “Try to keep her away from Sir Leon until this is over. The last thing we need is for this to cause trouble between Arthur and the knights.”

 

+

 

When Gwen answers her door a short while later, she looks pale and slightly ill, a thick shawl wrapped around her shoulders and her hair loose about her face.

“Merlin! Good morning!” she says, with an attempt at her usual smile. “What, er—what can I do for you?”

“I just stopped by to see how you were feeling,” Merlin says, smiling back at her awkwardly. “You seemed…well, you didn’t seem like yourself last night, and I was worried. Are you all right?”

A dull flush spreads over Guinevere’s cheeks, and she clutches the shawl tighter over her chest as though suddenly chilled. “I don’t know why I did it,” she confesses, biting her lip. “I thought I’d gotten over him a long time ago, but then, last night…I wanted to kiss him, just once. Just to see what it would be like. I didn’t mean to get so carried away.”

“Wait—you mean, you actually like Leon?” Merlin asks, confused. “Since when?”

“Since I was a little girl,” she says, looking miserable. “I used to tag around after him on his parents’ estate like a silly little shadow, hoping he’d notice me. But he never did.” She covers her face with her hands, groaning. “Oh, Merlin, I’m so embarrassed. I’ve ruined everything! How am I ever going to look him in the face again? And what is Arthur going to think of me?”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Merlin tells her, patting her shoulder consolingly. “Arthur will forgive you once you explain to him what happened, and Sir Leon is a good man; I doubt you’re the first woman to have gotten drunk and kissed him unexpectedly.”

“But that’s just it,” Gwen says, raising her eyes to his again and looking almost frightened. “I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t touch a drop of wine all night.”

“But then—why did you kiss him?”

Gwen can only shrug and shake her head. “I just—wanted to,” she says. “And so I did.”

 

+

 

Merlin leaves her with the vial that Gaius gave him, along with strict instructions to stay at home for the time being.

“Better safe than sorry,” he says, while Gwen nods along fervently. She still looks completely mortified, although she has calmed down a little now that she has Gaius’ potion in her hands. “I’ll retrace your steps and try to figure out what happened.”

But figuring out what happened turns out to be easier said than done. Gwen had sworn that she hadn’t touched the wine; the only thing she’d drunk was the common ale that all the servants had access to, and none of them were going around kissing people they shouldn’t. That only left the food—in particular, the sweetmeats, which Gwen had admitted to having sampled once or twice throughout the evening.

“I know I shouldn’t have taken any,” she said, shamefaced. “But those feasts can last so long, sometimes, and the food smells so good—”

“It’s all right, Gwen,” Merlin reassured her. “We all do it. Can you tell me exactly what you ate, though? Maybe whatever enchantment you were under came from one of them.”

Accordingly, Merlin’s first stop when he leaves Gwen’s house is the castle kitchens, where he hopes to find enough of the delicacies left over to help him identify the spell in question. He’s never heard of a love potion being applied via food before—according to Gaius, it tends to dilute their efficacy—but he’s not about to rule anything out at this stage. Perhaps the sorcerer, whoever they were, had only had access to the platters and not the jugs, or had been somewhat pressed for time amidst all the bustle. Or perhaps they had spilled something in their haste, and Gwen had been the unintended recipient. The only way to know was to check and make sure.

When he arrives in the kitchens, however, Merlin finds the entire place in an uproar.

“What’s going on?” he asks, snagging the arm of the nearest serving maid as she hurries past him. “Why is everyone shouting?”

“Daisy just kissed Aileen,” the girl tells him, sounding delighted. “Right in the middle of the kitchens! The cook’s going spare.”

Merlin stares at her, dismayed. Daisy is one of the general servants, whose job it is to help tidy up after the castle’s guests and ensure their rooms are clean. She hadn’t been serving at the feast last night, and she was altogether too timid to have touched the refreshments there if she had, which meant the chances of her having consumed the same love potion as Gwen were comparatively low. And yet, Merlin can't imagine her getting up the courage to kiss the cook’s daughter all by herself—not with all the others watching, at any rate—and it seems highly unlikely for there to have been two, entirely unconnected love potions drifting about the castle at the same time.

What the hell is going on?

 

+

 

Between his visit to Gwen and the furore in the kitchens, Merlin is later than usual bringing up Arthur’s breakfast. He knocks on Arthur’s door then pushes it open, half expecting the prince to still be abed, but Arthur is—unusually—already up and dressed, standing at the chamber window and looking out over the courtyard.

“Good morning, sire,” Merlin says warily, stopping just inside the door. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not particularly.” Arthur turns, and Merlin can see the truth of his words in his tousled hair and darkly shadowed eyes. “Did you see Gwen after the feast last night?”

Ah. Merlin sets the tray down carefully, trying to think of how to explain. How much did Arthur know? “Yes, I did, sire,” he says finally, laying out the breakfast things with concentrated attention. “She seemed…happy.”

“She did, didn’t she.”

Arthur crosses the room and takes a strawberry from one of the plates, but doesn’t eat it. Instead, he twists it around by the stem, staring at the ripe fruit as though he’s never seen it before, and Merlin’s heart contracts painfully.

“Arthur,” he begins, not knowing what to say. “I’m sure that—in fact, I’m positive that this will all blow over. Whatever Gwen may have done last night, that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t still—”

“She's always liked Leon, you know,” Arthur interrupts him, as though Merlin hadn’t spoken. “She used to follow him around when we were younger, until her brother stepped in and put a stop to it. I think he was worried she would get her heart broken, especially as Leon is so much older than her.”

“She did mention something like that this morning,” Merlin admits, wondering how much he ought to divulge of what he knew. “But, sire, even if she may have liked Leon when she was a girl, that was a long time ago, and I know Gwen would never intentionally do anything to hurt you. Nor would Leon, for that matter.”

“No, of course not.” Arthur shakes his head. “Guinevere is free to like whomever she chooses; I’ve already told her that. She’s promised me nothing, and God knows I have little enough to promise her. It’s only—” He stops, sighs, and runs a rough hand through his hair. “Never mind. You have to admire her courage, that’s all.”

Merlin says nothing, not sure how he is expected to respond. It doesn’t sound like Arthur is very heartbroken, or even feeling particularly betrayed, and that isn’t the sort of reaction he’d been expecting. Arthur _likes_ Gwen. Merlin knows he does; he’s seen the way the two of them are together. Arthur listens to her almost as often as he listens to Merlin, and he obviously cares a great deal about her opinion. It has to have hurt him to have caught her kissing someone else, but Arthur isn’t acting like someone who’s just seen the love of their life in another man’s arms. In fact, it almost sounds like he’s impressed, and pleased for Gwen that she had been brave enough to pursue her feelings. Is it possible that he has been enchanted after all?

With a surreptitious glance at the prince, who has turned back towards his breakfast, Merlin holds out a hand and mutters a quiet incantation. When done correctly, the spell reveals any enchantment that has been cast in the vicinity over the last few days. Things being what they are in Camelot, Merlin had considered it necessary to learn, but even though he can feel it working normally, Arthur’s eyes don't turn red or flash the way they would if he had been recently ensorcelled. It seems that, whatever the prince’s feelings may be, they are his own, and not a byproduct of enemy magic, which Merlin finds both relieving and frustrating at the same time. It’s not helpful at all as far as Arthur’s relationship with Gwen is concerned—but it does give him an idea.

 

+

 

“This is becoming quite an epidemic,” Merlin says some time later, slumping down onto a bench in the infirmary shortly after mid-day. “Do you know who I ran into in the corridor just now? Leon and Percival. Kissing. I didn’t even know Sir Leon was interested in men.”

Gaius makes a noncommittal sound and shakes his head. “And you say the only thing the couples seem to have in common is that they never intended to act upon their feelings?”

“As far as I can tell.” Merlin shrugs. “I spoke to Daisy a little while ago, and her story more or less matches Gwen’s. The two of them weren’t so much acting against their will as just—acting on impulses they would normally suppress.”

“Hmm.” Gaius strokes his chin thoughtfully, flicking through the pages of the spell book in front of him. “Then I fear this may be rather worse than I thought. A simple love spell would be easy enough to counteract, but this…” He finds the entry he’s looking for and taps it meaningfully, turning the book and sliding it across the table so that Merlin can see. “This is far more complicated.”

“ _A heart’s desire spell_ ,” Merlin reads out loud. “ _Enchants the victim to act on their truest love and deepest, most hidden desire, regardless of the consequences._ So, you mean—”

“These are genuine emotions that we’re dealing with,” Gaius finishes for him, nodding. “Not false feelings of infatuation engendered by the spell. Which makes it infinitely more dangerous.” He sighs. “We need to work out how this is spreading, and fast. This kind of enchantment can be disastrous for all concerned.”

“I don’t know,” Merlin says slowly, thinking of Daisy and the cook’s daughter, both of whom had seemed pretty happy in spite of Aileen’s mother’s rages. “Couldn’t it turn out to be a good thing? I mean, not for Gwen, I guess, since it looks like Leon may be in love with someone else, but what harm can come from people going after what they want?”

Gaius peers at him over his spectacles, pursing his lips. “Can you think of no one who might be harmed, if word of their true desires got out?” he asks. “What about those who are already married, but do not love their spouses? Or those in love with someone far above their station?” He sighs, shaking his head. “No, Merlin. This is not a kind spell, and it wasn’t intended to do Camelot a favour. We need to find a way to fix it before it does any more damage.”

“All right,” Merlin agrees, seeing that his mentor is serious. He thinks about Arthur again, wondering how the prince might react if he were suddenly compelled to kiss someone in front of all and sundry, and shudders. Right. He can definitely see how this has the potential to go terribly wrong. “The question is, how do we go about doing that?”

“That, my dear boy,” Gaius says, reaching for the book and pulling it back towards him again, “is what we need to find out.”

 

+

 

According to Gaius’ research, a heart’s desire spell can only be cast on an object, not a person.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Merlin protests, reading the passage again. “An object can’t have a heart’s desire. It doesn’t even have a heart, let alone feelings to go with it.”

“No, but it acts like a carrier,” Gaius explains. “Whoever touches the object becomes enchanted with the spell, for however long it takes them to get their desires out of their system. After that, it moves on to the next host, presumably when the first victim kisses them.”

“So, it’s kind of like a virus,” Merlin says. “And it spreads from person to person?”

“An apt description. The good news is, that means Gwen should be free of it now, unless she touches the object again.”

“So all we need to do is find out all the things she touched last night at the feast,” Merlin says, his heart sinking. “Gaius, you do realise how impossible that is? She’s a servant, she must have touched a hundred different things in that room!”

“It would have to be something unique,” Gaius tells him, gesturing towards the book again. “And something that Daisy could also have touched. You say she wasn’t working in the Great Hall last night, and didn’t start showing symptoms until this morning; that narrows the range of possibilities considerably, I should think.”

“I suppose,” Merlin says, sighing gustily. “Although I still don’t think it’s going to be easy to find.”

“I have faith in you, my boy,” Gaius says kindly, patting him on the shoulder in an avuncular fashion. “If anyone can find a cursed object hidden in this castle, it's you.”

Merlin cocks an eyebrow at him, wondering if the physician intended for that to sound quite so ominous, but Gaius just smiles and gives him a gentle shove towards the door.

 

+

 

Fortunately for Merlin, Gwen agrees to help him look for the enchanted object, but only after Merlin assures her that the Great Hall is bound to be empty at this time of day, and that, furthermore, he had seen Sir Leon riding out on patrol a few hours earlier.

“I just don’t think I can face him at the moment,” Gwen says apologetically, and Merlin nods.

“I understand,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Between the two of them, they are able to cover the majority of the Great Hall in less than half an hour. Most of the chairs and table settings have already been cleared away, and they can’t see anything that looks particularly out of the ordinary amidst the remaining debris.

“I suppose it could have been something belonging to one of the guests,” Gwen suggests doubtfully, when they’ve scoured every inch of the room and found nothing of interest. “Although, I don’t really remember anything unus—no, wait!” She catches Merlin’s arm, looking excited. “Lady Winifred! She and her father are visiting from Ghent. She dropped something—a pin of some kind. I picked it up and gave it back to her. Could that have been it?”

“Quite possibly,” Merlin says with a grin. “Now we just have to figure out how to get hold of it, so we can check whether it’s the item we’re looking for.”

“It was quite small,” Gwen says, holding out thumb and forefinger a couple of inches apart. “Gold, I think, with some kind of inscription. I didn’t get a good look at it, but I’m pretty sure I’d know it if I saw it again.”

“Good. In that case, we need to go and find Arthur—he can distract Lady Winifred while the two of us take a look through some of her things.”

“But what are we going to say to him?” Gwen asks, trailing along behind Merlin as he heads for the double doors. “We can’t just go up prince and say, ‘Sorry, Arthur, but can you talk to Lady Winifred for a minute, as we need to go and search through her personal belongings’!”

Merlin snorts, imagining Arthur’s face if either of them said any such thing. He is about to suggest that he should be the one to do the talking when he runs into something solid.

“Ouch! Oh—sorry, Percival,” he says, looking up at the knight. But Sir Percival doesn't so much as glance at him.

“Gwen!” he says, his face lighting up. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“You have?” Gwen exchanges a glance with Merlin. “Why, is something—?”

But she doesn’t get to finish her sentence. Merlin watches, dumbfounded, as the usually shy and self-effacing Sir Percival crosses the space between them in a single stride, takes Gwen in his arms—surprisingly gently, for a man of his bulk—and kisses her soundly on the lips.

“Oh,” Gwen says faintly when he lets her go, putting a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness.”

“Percy!” Merlin exclaims, shocked, before realising what must have happened. When Gwen had kissed Leon, the spell must have transferred itself to him, only to move on to Percival when he and the other knight had made out with one another in the corridor. He closes his eyes briefly. Is there anyone in this castle whose love life isn’t unbearably complicated? “Never mind, we don’t have time to explain. Have you seen Arthur?”

“Um, I think I saw him go out in the gardens a while ago,” Percival says, still staring at Gwen, who is staring right back at him, her eyes wide. The knight’s cheeks are flushed crimson, and as Merlin watches, he all but shuffles his feet, looking sheepish. “Guinevere, I’m really sorry. I should never have done that; I don’t know what came over—”

“You were enchanted,” Merlin interrupts him, patting Percival on his massive bicep as he passes. “It’s not your fault. Gwen understands, don’t you Gwen?” He pauses. “Gwen?”

Gwen is blushing too, now, staring down at her feet and biting her lower lip in a manner Merlin recognises only too well. He rolls his eyes heavenwards.

“I’ll just leave you two to sort that out, then,” he says, and dashes off in search of the prince. He’s pretty sure neither of them even notice him go.

 

+

 

He finds Arthur exactly where Percival said he would be: walking through the rose garden, arm in arm with none other than Lady Winifred of Ghent. The two of them have their heads bent close together over something the Lady Winifred is holding, and Merlin stops dead, cursing himself silently. He should have expected she would try again.

“—had it commissioned specially for my wedding day,” he can hear the lady saying, as she offers the prince an object wrapped in a white linen handkerchief. “Go ahead and open it—I don’t mind. I thought perhaps you might like to see it—”

It happens in a split second. As Merlin approaches the two of them at a run, he can see Arthur reaching for the cloth-wrapped parcel, a charming smile fixed on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He opens his mouth to say something—no doubt a polite compliment about whatever it is that Winifred has just handed him—when Merlin shouts a warning, causing the prince to turn and nearly stumble on the uneven ground. The object goes flying, coming free of its linen shroud as it soars through the air.

And Merlin catches it.

 

+

 

It’s a strange feeling, being enchanted. It hasn’t happened to Merlin very often, but each time the sensation is utterly unique. Standing there amidst the rose bushes, his hands still outstretched, Merlin can feel the spell rush over him in a gentle wave, sending something akin to intoxication flooding his body. He looks down at the object nestled in his palm. It’s a simple brooch, he can see now, elegantly fashioned into the shape of two intertwined hearts—exactly the sort of token he would expect a girl of Winifred’s rank to covet, if he were honest—and to his bespelled eyes the shapes appear to be glowing, throbbing in time to his suddenly racing pulse.

“Merlin?” Arthur says, taking a step towards him. “Is everything all right?”

Merlin glances up at him. Arthur is dressed in deep blue velvet, a jacket that Merlin has always favoured because of the way it brings out his eyes. He has his arms folded, one eyebrow raised as he waits for Merlin to answer, and there's an expression of affectionate exasperation on his face that has always made Merlin's insides turn over. He looks, Merlin realises, like the one person Merlin never wants to be parted from for the rest of his life, and suddenly a great many things that Merlin has been ignoring for a very long time are starting to make an inconvenient amount of sense.

“Everything’s fine,” Merlin croaks, and because he knows that he’s going to have to do it anyway, he marches straight up to Arthur, takes his face between his palms, and kisses him without hesitation.

Arthur’s lips are soft and slightly chapped, and they part when Merlin licks his way between them as though the two of them have been doing this for years. Arthur lets out a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a gasp, and Merlin takes that as permission to deepen the embrace, sucking Arthur’s lower lip into his mouth and hooking his fingers into Arthur’s belt to tug him closer. Arthur obeys the summons eagerly, his own hands coming up to bracket Merlin’s shoulders, and for a long moment everything else seems to disappear from Merlin’s thoughts, leaving them empty of anything but Arthur and Arthur’s mouth.

At length, he forces himself to step away, panting heavily.

“What—what was that for?” Arthur asks, sounding breathless. “Merlin?”

“I’m sorry, sire,” Merlin says, shaken but now in control of his faculties once again. “I’m really, really sorry, I couldn’t—”

But then Arthur is kissing him back, hot and desperate, and Merlin can only clutch at his tunic and whimper, too taken aback by Arthur’s sudden enthusiasm to attempt to explain any further. He hadn’t even considered—during the five seconds or so that he’d had to think about the subject—that Arthur might actually reciprocate his feelings, but now that he has it seems utterly impossible that he could ever have done anything else. After all, hadn't the dragon told him they were two sides of the same coin? 

“What were you saying,” the prince asks, when the two of them finally come up for air for the second time, “about being sorry?”

Merlin touches his mouth, still tingling in the wake of Arthur’s lips, and feels it curve into a wondering smile. “I—nothing, sire. Nothing at all.”

“Well, really.” Turning, Merlin is just in time to witness Lady Winifred stamping her foot in the muddy grass. “You’re not supposed to be in love with _him_. Arthur, darling, wouldn’t you rather be kissing me instead?”

Arthur looks from her to Merlin and back again, then breaks into a slow grin that lights up his entire face. “No, thank you, Lady Winifred,” he says politely. “The only person I want to kiss right now is Merlin.”

 

+

 

“I think she honestly believed that Arthur was in love with her,” Merlin tells Gaius later, handing over the cursed brooch which is once more concealed in Lady Winifred’s handkerchief. “Either that, or she was hoping to cause a big enough scandal that he’d be forced to marry her anyway, just to save face.”

“I’m not convinced that she didn’t,” Gaius says, looking down at the place where Merlin’s other hand is intertwined with Arthur’s. “You do realise what will happen if the king were to learn about this.”

“He’s not going to find out,” Arthur says, his fingers tightening around Merlin’s protectively. “If Lady Winifred breathes a word to anyone, she’ll be executed for treason, and it’s not like I’m rushing to share the news with him myself. I only hope Gwen won’t be too disappointed with the way things have turned out.”

“I wouldn’t worry about her, sire,” Merlin says. The last time he’d seen Gwen, she and Percival had been in deep conversation with Sir Leon, and it didn’t look as though any of them were planning to let the others down gently. “She has more than enough to occupy herself with just now.”

Arthur looks somewhat askance at this, but Merlin shakes his head. It’s Gwen’s secret to tell, if she wants to; he no longer feels qualified to mediate between the two of them, especially since he now knows where Arthur’s heart truly lies. “What about the others? Was it only Daisy and Aileen who were affected?”

“It would appear so,” Gaius says, nodding. “Fortunately, the spell in this case was self-limiting; since Aileen returned Daisy’s unexpressed affections, she didn’t pass the compulsion on to anyone else, and the only others who were infected appear to have been the two of you, Gwen, and some of the knights."

“What I don’t understand is, how did Gwen and Daisy even come into contact with the brooch in the first place?” Arthur asks, sounding confused. “I’ve never even seen the thing before today, and I don’t imagine Lady Winifred was trying to enchant either of them into creating a scandal.”

“Lady Winifred was wearing it at the feast,” Merlin explains. “She must have been hoping to use it on you then—somewhere nice and public—but she dropped it, and Gwen was the unlucky servant who picked it up. Daisy was the one who took care of her rooms,” he continues, when Arthur opens his mouth to ask. “She probably touched it by accident while she was in there cleaning up.”

“All this, just for the love of a prince,” Gaius observes, shaking his head in obvious disapproval. “Lady Winifred is very lucky she got off as lightly as she did. If the spell had spread further, or if word had gotten back to your father, Arthur, I doubt he would have been so lenient.”

Merlin nods seriously, but Arthur looks a bit uncomfortable. “I feel like I may have been somewhat to blame for her behaviour,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Her family owns an important piece of land out by the southern border, and my father has been encouraging me to pay court to her in an effort to keep them in line. He seems to think that the prospect of a marriage alliance between the two of us would be enough to keep Lord Marrick from doing anything drastic—such as plotting to overthrow the crown. I didn’t want to,” he adds hastily, with a sidelong glance at Merlin. “It was purely political on my part, and in any case, I—I'm pretty sure I’m in love with someone else.”

He flushes when he says it, but he holds Merlin’s gaze defiantly, as though daring him to comment. Instead, Merlin leans over and kisses him again, still revelling in the fact that he gets to do that any time he wants. “Good thing, too,” he says, smiling. “It would have been terribly awkward otherwise.”

“Yes, well. I’m going to take that as my cue to leave,” Gaius says, getting to his feet. He picks up the little white bundle, taking care not to touch the object inside, and tucks it carefully away in a pouch at his belt. “I need to find a place where I can dispose of this safely, without the risk of prying eyes. Besides.” He pauses in the open doorway and looks at Merlin, raising his eyebrows. “I imagine the two of you have a lot to talk about.”

“We do?” Arthur asks, frowning between the two of them, and Merlin gulps.

“Er, yeah,” he says, letting go of the prince’s hand to wipe his suddenly sweaty palms on his trouser legs. He hadn’t really been planning to bring up the magic _now_ , thank you, Gaius, but—well. There was no time like the present, after all. “You see, Arthur, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

 


End file.
